I like all the Buell models and the Buell M2 Cyclone is my favorite Buell of the bunch. I mean to have one before I shuffle off this mortal torsion. Unlike most of the motorcycles I want to own, this is one Dream Bike that is very affordable. Even an Internet blogger wannabe can pick up a running, low mileage copy for a couple thousand bucks. And if I ever get a couple thousand bucks ahead I’ll get one.
The M2 was manufactured in that brief window of history before Erik Buell went totally crazy. After the M2 Buell started mixing up all the traditional systems on a motorcycle just to show you that he could. Yeah, it worked but the motorcycling public wasn’t ready for inside-out brakes and aluminum frames full of gasoline.
The frame on the M2 is plain old steel tubing with a sturdy rear sub-frame that can support a passenger or luggage. The value of a sturdy sub-frame was made apparent to me on a recent trip to Bonneville, Utah. The swaying luggage on my pencil-necked Husqvarna 500 frame was nerve wracking. Similar to an old Norton, the M2 frame isolates all the motorcycle parts a rider comes in contact with from the shaking, quaking Sportster engine. That feature comes in handy on a long trip.
Steel is relatively easy to bend and weld. Even the most basic repair shop will have a set of 0xy-acetylene torches that can fix anything on the M2’s frame. I also like the standard gas tank position and conventional forks. I don’t road race on the street so the added stiffness of a cool, upside-down front end is wasted on a peon like me.
The engine on the M2 is a hot-rodded 1200cc Sportster putting out around 90 horsepower. 90 horsepower is a lot of go-go from a half-century-old design that puttered along at 50 horsepower for decades. Just getting a new 883 Sportster engine up to the 90 horsepower level would cost more than an entire Buell! Later, crazier Buells had even more power and more Buell-specific engine parts while still being based on the Sportster. Buell even used, God forbid, Rotax engines! I can see parts for those engines becoming scarce within the 100-year time frame I like to operate. No such problems with the M2 engine as it’s mostly plain-old-plain-old and parts for the Harley-Davidson Sportster engine will be available on into the next millennia.
The M2’s styling has hints of Buell’s Blast but it looks good to me. I like a standard-style motorcycle, one that can go from touring bike to trail machine with only the removal of a few bungee cords. It’s a model I keep a weather eye on in case a steal of a deal pops up on one of the Internet for-sale sites. And yellow is the fastest color.
The year was 1991, and the last thing in the world I was thinking about was buying another motorcycle, and within the confines of that thought, the very, very last thought I would have ever had was buying a Harley-Davidson. I had previously owned a ’79 Electra-Glide I bought new in Texas, and that bike was a beautiful disaster. I called it my optical illusion (it looked like a motorcycle). I wrote about the bad taste it left in an earlier blog. Nope, I’d never own another Harley, or so I thought when I sold it in 1981.
My ’79 Electra-Glide Classic, as shown in the 1979 Harley catalog. It was the most unreliable and most beautiful motorcycle I ever owned. I wish I still had it.
But like the title of that James Bond movie, you should never say never again. I was a big wheel at an aerospace company in 1991 and I was interviewing engineers when good buddy Dick Scott waltzed in as one of the applicants. I had worked with Dick in another aerospace company (in those days in the So Cal aerospace industry, everybody worked everywhere at one time or another). Dick had the job as soon as he I saw he was applying, but I went through the motions interviewing him and I learned he had a Harley. DIck said they were a lot better than they used to be and he gave me the keys to his ’89 Electra-Glide. I rode it and he was right. It felt solid and handled way better than my old Shovelhead.
Dick Scott on his ’89 Electra-Glide. The day after I took this photo in Baja, Dick died when he crashed his motorcycle.
That set me on a quest. I started looking, and after considering the current slate of Harleys in 1991, I decided that what I needed was a Heritage Softail. I liked the look and I thought I wanted the two-tone turquoise-and-white version. The problem, though, was that none of the Harley dealers had motorcycles. They were all sold before they arrived at the dealers, and the dealers were doing their gouging in those days with a “market adjustment” uptick ranging from $2000 to sometimes $4000 (today, most non-Harley dealers sort of do the same thing with freight and setup). There was no way in hell I was going to pay over list price, but even had I wanted to, it would have been a long wait to get a new Harley.
One day while driving to work, a guy passed me on the freeway riding a sapphire blue Heritage softail, and I was smitten. Those colors worked even better for me than did the turquoise-and-white color combo. The turquoise-and-white had a nice ‘50s nostalgia buzz (it reminded me of a ’55 Chevy Bel Air), but that sapphire blue number was slick. Even early in the morning on Interstate 10, I could see the orange and gray factory pinstriping, and man, it just worked for me. It had kind of a blue jeans look to it (you know, denim with orange stitching). That was my new want and I wanted the thing bad. But it didn’t make any difference. Nobody had any new Harleys, and nobody had them at list price. I might as well have wanted a date with Michelle Pfeiffer. In those days, a new Harley at list price or less in the colors I wanted (or in any colors, actually) was pure unobtanium.
The Harley Softail I bought at Dale’s Modern Harley. I negotiated a hell of a deal. I kept that Harley for 12 years and rode the wheels off the thing. I’ve since learned how to pack a little better.
So one Saturday morning about a month later, I took a drive out to the Harley dealer in San Bernardino. In those days, that dealer was Dale’s Modern Harley (an oxymoronic name for a Harley dealer if ever there was one). Dale’s is no more, but when it was there, it was the last of the real motorcycle shops. You know the drill…it was in a bad part of town, it was small, everything had grease and oil stains, and the only thing “modern” was the name on the sign. That’s what motorcycle dealers were like when I was growing up. I liked it that way, and truth be told, I miss it. Dealerships are too clean today.
Anyway, a surprise awaited. I walked in the front door (which was at the rear of the building because the door facing the street was chained shut because, you know, it was a bad part of town). And wow, there it was: A brand new 1992 Heritage Softail in sapphire blue. Just like I wanted.
Dale’s had a sales guy who came out of Central Casting for old Harley guys. His name was Bob (I never met Dale and I have no idea who he was). Bob. You know the type and if you’re old enough you know the look. Old, a beer belly, a dirty white t-shirt, jeans, engineer boots, a blue denim vest, and one of those boat captain hats motorcycle riders wore in the ‘40s and ‘50s. An unlit cigarette dangled from one corner of his mouth. His belt was a chromed motorcycle chain. I’d been to Dale’s several times before, and I’d never seen Bob attired in anything but what I just described. And I’d never seen him without that unlit cigarette. Straight out of Central Casting, like I said.
“What’s this?” I asked Bob, pointing at the blue Softail.
“Deal fell through,” Bob answered. “Guy ordered it, we couldn’t get him financing, and he couldn’t get a loan anywhere else.”
“So it’s available?” I asked.
“Yep.”
Hmmm. This was interesting.
“How much?” I asked.
“$12,995, plus tax and doc fees,” Bob answered, walking back to his desk at the edge of Dale’s very small showroom floor.
$12,995 was MSRP for a new Heritage Softail back in 1992. That would be a hell of a deal. Nobody else in So Cal was selling Harleys at list price.
I followed Bob to his desk and sat down. I was facing Bob and the Harley was behind me. Bob was screwing around with some papers on his desk and not paying any particular attention to me.
“I’ll go $11,500 for it,” I said.
Bob looked up from his paperwork and smiled.
“Son,” he said (and yeah, he actually called me “son,” even though I was 40 years old at the time) “I’m going to sell that motorsickle this morning. Not this afternoon, not next week, but this morning. The only question is: Am I going to sell it to you or am I going to sell it to him?”
Bob actually said “motorsickle,” I thought, and then I wondered who “him” was. Bob sensed my befuddlement. He pointed behind me and I looked. Somebody was already sitting on what I had started regarding as my motorsickle. That guy was thinking the same thing I was.
“Bob,” I began, “you gotta help me out here. I never paid retail for anything in my life.”
“That’s because you never bought a new ’92 Harley, son, but I’ll tell you what. I’ll throw in a free Harley T-shirt.” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or if he was trying to insult me, but I didn’t care.
I looked at the Harley again and that other dude was still sitting on it. On my motorcycle. And that’s when I made up my mind. $12,995 later (plus another thousand dollars in taxes and doc fees) I rolled out of Dale’s with a brand-new sapphire blue Harley Heritage Softail. And one new Harley T-shirt.
As you may know, Joe Gresh started a Facebook group he called COMA. That’s an acronym for Crappy Old Motorcycle Association, and the intent is for folks to post photos of old and crappy motorcycles. That’s all fine and dandy, but it presents me with a dilemma: What do you do with photos of a motorcycle that’s old but most definitely not crappy?
Behold: The 1982 Yamaha Seca. This particular motorcycle is nearly 40 years old, and it’s just barely broken in. Sweet!
That surely is how anyone would describe Steve Seidner’s 1982 Yamaha Seca. When Steve bought it almost a year ago, it had a scant 1700 miles and change on the clock. I tried to buy it from Steve when he bought it, but it was no dice. Steve knows what he has: A motorcycle manufactured when Ronald Reagan resided at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, a nearly-40-year-old motorcycle in absolutely pristine condition. This is what I would call a New Old Stock motorcycle. It’s not been restored, and it’s essentially in as new condition.
The cockpit. Tach, speedo, and more. Check the odo reading. I’m the guy who bumped it over 1800 miles. Sweet!
Okay, I can take no for an answer. Steve didn’t want to sell, and sometimes you have to just suck it up and move on. But Steve wasn’t riding the thing, and a slippery 4-cylinder, fire engine red, 550cc motorcycle is a machine that cries out for abuse in the San Gabriel Mountains. I explained all of this to Steve, I threatened to expose some of his darkest secrets on the ExNotes blog, and a couple of days go, Steve gave me the keys to the kingdom. The kingdom being, of course, one 1982 Yamaha Seca with just over 1700 miles on the odometer.
Starboard. That means the right side. Of course, on this bike there really is no wrong side.
Well, the odo now reads over 1800 miles. Who done that? Me? Guilty as charged. It was a blast. I grabbed a few photos and I’ll share them with you here. I’m doing a more in depth road report on the Seca that will be in print somewhere down the road, and you’ll have to read that to get the full story. For now, enjoy these teasers.
The radical Left. As in the left side of a motorcycle that, in 1982, was a radical departure from the norm. This bike is beautiful.
So what was it like riding this blast from the past? Truth be told, it could have been a modern motorcycle. It handled flawlessly, it made good power, and it has good brakes. I loved it. I had the San Gabriels all to myself when I was up there on Steve’s Seca. It was a glorious day.
Yeah, this is a tough job. If not me, who would do this sort of thing?
There are some things on the Seca that were cutting edge in ’82, and others that we might regard as quaint today. But it all worked. A single disk up front and a drum (gasp!) in the rear (nobody told that drum brake it wasn’t supposed to work as well as it did). And what was the state of the art in 82…a four-cylinder engine with four carbs and a fancy cross induction system that was supposed to increase combustion chamber swirl for more power. I guess it worked, because the bike felt fantastic. It matched its looks, which are, well, fantastic.
Cast aluminum wheels, and a single disk up front…And a drum in the rear. It worked just fine.Bright, bright red, silver and black accents, and a state of the art 550 YICS engine. More on that YICS business later…
The view from the saddle was glorious, the Seca had a marvelous ExhaustNote (I love that word), and I was in my element up in the San Gabriels. I enjoyed the ride tremendously.
The view from Command Central. If it looks like it was a great day for a motorcycle ride, I’ll let you in on a little secret: They’re all great days!
It’s not often you see low-mileage, 4-decade-old-bike in as new condition. Steve’s Seca takes that description up a notch. How about a bike that has the original owner’s manual and tool kit?
The original tool kit. The original owner’s manual. It doesn’t get any better than this. A Yamaha time capsule, circa 1982.
When I returned to the CSC plant, Steve wanted to know all about the ride and how the bike felt. “It started missing a bit at around 110 mph,” I said, and Steve just smiled. He knew. I never took the Seca above 55 mph, partly because all my riding was in the San Gabriel’s tight twisties, and partly out of respect (both for the bike and for the man who allowed me to experience it). Good times.
The Man, The Machine, the Legend…Steve Seidner, the CSC Founder and CEO, and the Seca’s owner. Steve, thanks very much!
You know, it really is amazing how much technology has changed in the last 40 years. To be perfectly honest, the Seca’s performance below 55 mph (which is the only region I rode it in) was good, but it was not too much different than my trusty 250cc RX3, and at low speeds, I think the RX3 actually has a bit more grunt. That’s understandable, I suppose, as the RX3 is a single and the Seca is a four. I imagine the Seca has more top end and probably a bit more of a rush accelerating at freeway speeds, but the time-capsule Seca ride reminded me just how good a motorcycle the RX3 is. If you want to buy a Seca like the one featured in this blog from Steve, you’re out of luck (believe me, I tried). If you want to buy a new RX3, though, I hear Steve can help you make that dream come true!
Steve has some cool toys. Some time ago he let me swing a leg over his Norton Commando for a similar ride. You can read that story here. Steve has a pretty cool mid-60’s Mopar, too. I’m still working on getting the keys to that one.
That’s it for now, folks. I’ve got some more photos to process for another blog in a day or two on yet another toy, one that is a cool 101 years old. Stay tuned!
Adios, my friends. Stay tuned for another Prancing Pony tale!
This is the first image on the ExhaustNotes home page, and it provides a link to the ExNotes blog. This is the Gobi Desert in northwestern China, and that’s the real deal…a camel caravan. Gresh and I rode there on our motorcycles.The link to articles by Joe Gresh previously published in a variety of magazines. There’s good reading here! The photo? That’s Gresh entering the Gobi Desert on a Zongshen RX3.This is at the entrance to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and it’s your link to magazine articles by Berk.Want to know what the ExNotes site is all about? You can get the story here. That photo? Hey, Gresh and I like gladiator movies. We were actors in one filmed in central China, near the city of Liqian.Trust me on this: You need to advertise on ExhaustNotes.us. Here’s the link to get that process started. This photo was up on the Tibetan Plateau, with the city of Aba in the background.The best riding on the planet, and it starts just across the border! Click this link to get our stories, our guidance, our suggested itineraries, and more on this magical place. I took this photo while riding my CSC Mustang through Baja’s Catavina boulder fields.Yep, we’re a motorcycle site, but this is one of the busiest places in all of the ExhaustNotes empire. Click this link for our Tales of the Gun stories. That’s me firing the mighty M1 Garand. My daughter shot the above photo on her iPhone, capturing the cartridge case in midair!The only thing better than our Epic Motorcycle Rides page is actually getting out and creating the adventure yourself! Enjoy our tales of the adventure riding trails here! Oh, and that photo? It’s Gresh on an Enfield in Mexico!Gresh doesn’t do 100-point restorations. Nope, his deal is rustorations, not restorations. A bike is only original once. The photo is Gobi Gresh’s mighty Z1 Kawasaki at the Tinfiny Ranch. It runs now, and you can read about how Joe brought it back to life here.The stuff of dreams, the ones that got away, and more. You can peek into our dreams here. That’s my old 1200 Triumph Daytona after a 120-mph sprint across Highway 58 in California.Who you calling Tubby? Here’s a cool collection of our videos. The photo was taken in Qufu, the birthplace of Confucius. Gresh and others are grabbing videos during a changing of the guard ceremony.Motors, the best job on the force. I believe it, and you should, too. We’ve recently added a page indexing our police motorcycle stuff, and you can get to it here. The photo is good buddy Jim Watson on a Honda ST1300P police motorcycle.The RX3 is a great bike, but folks wanted more displacement. Zongshen responded with the RX4, and upsized version of their iconic RX3, and CSC is taking orders now. You can read all about the RX4 and how it compares to the RX3 and the KLR 650 here. We rode the one above in the San Gabriel Mountains, which is where we shot this photo.It’s a new world out there, folks, and electric motorcycles are part of it. You can catch up on what’s happening here. That’s a CSC City Slicker, a phenomenal buy at just $2495!Writers write. Hey, it’s what we do. With something north of 20 titles under our belt, yeah, we’re gonna brag a bit. Read all about it here, and get links to buy our books on this page!Want the e-ticket ride back to the ExhaustNotes home page? It’s right here. And that photo? It’s the Bridge of the Gods, spanning the mighty Columbia River from Washington to Oregon. When I’m there, it feels like it’s a place where I belong. What could possibly be a more fitting home page link?
There you have it, my friends. You’ll see all of the above when you open our home page, and it’s your nav system to the rest of the site.
Hey, there’s more good stuff coming your way. We do our best to blog every day, and we’ve got great stories lined up for you:
Good buddy Steve’s Norton Commando
More vintage police motors
The continuation of our .45 ACP ammo series
The Indiana Jones aspects of riding in China
And much, much more. Don’t miss any of it…sign up for our automatic email updates (add your name to our email list), and you’ll stay up to date!
In San Diego I lived across the street from a Safeway food market. Man, I never ran out of anything. That Safeway is now a West Marine boat supply store. They got nothing to eat in the whole damn place. But back then, around 1980, it was a great food source.
In my pad I had a tiny refrigerator with one of those wine-in-a-carton things inside. My buddy Mark found it in the road, not far from the house. Nobody I knew drank wine, or at least that wine. There was a perforated cardboard section that you knocked out and inside was a hose that connected to the plastic sack of wine. It was practical as hell, like a battery acid container. The hose had a shut off thingy, you kind of rolled the shut off onto a ramp until it pinched the hose closed. The wine tasted bad. Maybe it got hot in the sun out in the street. No telling how long it was there before Mark found it. Whenever anyone would drop by I’d ask if they wanted some wine, that’s what adults do. It was still in the fridge a few years later when I moved away.
I’d leave my one bedroom, one bath rental house on Point Loma’s Locust Street around 5pm. My bike was a 1968 electric-start XLH Sportster converted to kick start. Because electric kickers are for Honda riders, man. From Point Loma I’d reel onto Interstate 5 and roll the throttle on, lane splitting for 15 miles to Gene’s house in Mira Mesa. Back then every subdivision in San Diego sounded like one of the wooden sailing ships that discovered America: The Nina, The Rancho Bernardo and The Santa Antiqua. I guess they still name California things that way. Streets are Calles or Avenidas. Townhouses are called Don Coryells, after a football coach.
Gene had a 1973 Sportster, the one with the crude looking steel bar bent into a U-shape to secure the top shock absorber mounts. The result of AMF cost cutting. My older Sporty had a beautiful cast part welded into the frame tubes performing the same function. You couldn’t see either one once the seat was installed but I knew it was there. Gene knew it too. Gene was my wing man, my BFF. We used to drink in bars and shoot pool after work. It was nothing to stay up late at night, I only needed a few hours sleep. In those years Harley-Davidson motorcycles had a terrible reputation. Their riders were no prize either. We liked the way the bikes sounded and the way they looked.
California traffic was just as bad in 1980 as is today. We lane split all the way to Oceanside where the northbound traffic would thin out for 30 miles or so then lane split to the 405 and past the “Go See Cal” auto dealership. Cal’s dog Spot was a lion. He was featured in Worthington Ford television ads. It was nerve wracking bumper to bumper riding all the way til dusk and the exit for Ascot park Raceway.
I saw my first Ducati Darmah in the parking lot at Ascot. It was the most beautiful bike I’d ever seen. The squared off crankcases were works of art. Our iron-head Harleys looked like civil war relics next to the Darmah. Like Genus Rattus, man. I didn’t envy the Ducati. I was still a hard core Harley guy. Pretty don’t mean nuttin’ to us. Fast, reliable motorcycles are for the weak. I still feel that way.
I may have this wrong but Ascot held two AMA Grand National races each year. Every race I went to was advertised as the final race because the track was closing to be sold. This went on for 12 years until the track really did sell. One National was a standard flat track race and one National was a TT, which is a standard FT track with a bump and a right hand turn. Usually by the time Gene and I got up there the heat races had already started.
Ascot wore its years well. The stands were uncomfortable and crowded. AMA Nationals are big deals. The restrooms were dungeons. We would eat bad food and drink beer and watch the best racing anywhere until 11pm at night. Being part of the hundreds of motorcycles leaving Ascot was a real thrill. The riders were fired up from the racing and we rolled it on to 405 and then 5 to the El Toro Road exit and the Bob’s Big Boy restaurant. Bob’s was a tradition for AMA Nationals. The burgers were small and nearly tasteless, the little triangle salads were frozen and the fries were thin as shim stock. Bob’s was a good place to feed your Genus Rattus.
Because we were riding so late, no matter what the time of year it was always cold on the way home from Ascot. Long, empty stretches of interstate 5 stuffed each gap in your leather jacket with a chilling, low hanging fog. The cold would quiet your mind. Focus on your breathing now, keep still, those iron engines loved the cold. I could see Gene’s Sportster chuffing away in the dark, tiny glints of chrome primary case flashed in sync with my wobbling headlight. Both our Sportsters ran straight pipes and Interstate 5 sounded like the back straight of Ascot. Except we never chopped the throttle.
South of La Jolla the air temperature would rise and dropping off 5 onto Rosecrans Street wrapped sea-warmth around my body. I loved that part of the ride. The shivering was over, I could smell ocean smells. My muscles relaxed. This early in the morning Rosecrans is deserted, I have to run the red lights because the sensors in the pavement cannot pick up motorcycles. The only sound is my 900cc Sportster slowly rowing through the gearbox, rumbling home.
Here’s another stunning motorcycle in the Motor Museum of Western Australia. It’s kind of wild that I am finding this exotic American iron on the other side of the planet (see our earlier blog on the 1920 Excelsior-Henderson), but hey, beauty knows no bounds!
The bike is beautiful, and the colors just flat work for me. I guess they worked for Harley-Davidson, too…in the mid-1980s they offered a Heritage model Shovelhead with the identical “pea green” color theme. I wish I had purchased one of those back in the day. Lord only knows what they are going for now.
Check out the exposed pushrods, rocker arms, valve stems, and fuel tank cutouts in the photo above. And then take a look at the leather work on the saddlebags below…
I’ll let the Motor Museum’s words do the talking here, folks…check out the distances covered on this bike, too!
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A cool story, this is: An American (that would be me) goes to Western Australia to find vintage American motorcycles in a fabulous motor museum…or something along those lines.
I haven’t spotted any kangaroos yet (although eight of them did run across the front lawn of the Motor Museum of Western Australia while I was photographing this stunning 1920 Excelsior-Henderson). I missed my chance to photograph the ‘roos…but you can always get photos of kangaroos. How often do you encounter a 1920 Excelsior-Henderson?
The short story here is that Excelsior-Henderson made motorcycles from 1907 to 1931 in Chicago, they made the first motorcycle that could hit 100 mph, and they were done in by the Great Depression. Beyond that, I’ll let the photos of this magnificent motorcycle do my talking…
I am enjoying Australia immensely. Joe Gresh, you got it right…this is an awesome place. The western shore along the Indian Ocean, the food, the people, the scenery…it’s all amazing, and it’s not that different in feel, look, and climate than southern California. But the vintage motorcycles at the Motor Museum of Western Australia: Wowee!
The Harley Electra-Glide Classic, as seen in Harley’s 1979 sales brochure.
It was beautiful, it was something I always dreamed about owning, and I couldn’t ride a hundred miles on it without something breaking. I paid more for it than anything I had ever purchased, I sold it in disgust two years later for half that amount, and today it’s worth maybe five times the original purchase price. I wish I still had it. I’m talking about my 1979 Harley-Davidson Electra-Glide, of course. That’s the tan-and-cream motorcycle you see in the photo above, scanned from my original 1979 Harley brochure. The motorcycle is long gone. I had the foresight to hang on to the brochure.
All of the photos in this blog are from that brochure. I wasn’t into photography in those days, but I wish now that I had been. The Harley’s inability to go a hundred miles without a breakdown notwithstanding, I hit a lot of scenic spots in the Great State of Texas back in 1979. The Harley’s colors would have photographed well. The only photo I can remember now is one of me working on the Harley with the cylinder heads off. It seems that’s how the Harley liked to be seen. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The 1979 Harley brochure cover.
So the year was 1979, I was young and single, and I was an engineer on the F-16 at General Dynamics in Fort Worth doing the things that well-compensated, single young guys did in those days: Drinking, riding (not at the same time), chasing young women, and dreaming about motorcycles. If you had mentioned gender-neutral bathrooms, man bun hairstyles, a universal basic income, democratic socialism, sanctuary cities, the Internet, or something called email in those days (especially in Texas), no one would have had any idea what you were talking about, and if you took the time to explain such things, you would have been run out of town after being shot a few times. Texas in 1979 was a good time and a good place.
I stopped often at the Fort Worth Harley dealer, and Harley was just starting to get into the nostalgia thing. I had sold my ’78 Bonneville and I had the urge to ride again. Harley had a bike called the Café Racer and I liked it a lot, but I took a pass on that one. Then they introduced the Low Rider and I loved it, but when sitting on the showroom Low Rider I turned the handlebars and one of the handlebar risers fractured (Harleys had a few quality issues in those days). Nope, it wouldn’t be a Low Rider. Then they introduced the Electra-Glide Classic, that stunning bike you see in the photos here. It was a dagger that went straight to my heart. I was stricken.
The Electra-Glide Classic was Harley’s first big push into the nostalgia shtick and it stuck. At least for me it did. My first memory of ever being stopped dead in my tracks by a visually-arresting motorcycle was with a Harley Duo-Glide full dresser when I was a kid (it was blue and white), and the Classic brought that memory home for me. The Classic’s two-tone tan-and-cream pastels were evocative of the ‘50s, maybe a Chevy Bel Air (even though those were turquoise and white, a color Harley later adopted in the early ‘90s with its Heritage Softails). The whole thing just worked for me. I had to have it.
I sat on the Classic and it was all over for me. I fell in love. I knew at that instant that I was meant to be a Harley man. I turned the handlebars and nothing broke. There was a cool old sales guy there named Marvin, and I asked what the bike would cost out the door. He already knew the answer: $5,998.30.
A two-page spread featuring the bike I bought.
Hmmm. $5,998.30. That was a lot of money. I was riding around in a new CB-equipped Ford F-150 that had cost less than that amount (hey, it was Texas; Breaker One Nine and all that). My internal struggle (extreme want versus $5,998.30) was apparent to old Marvin.
“You know you want it,” Marvin said, smiling an oily, used-car-salesman, Brylcreem smile (these guys all went to the same clothing stores and barbers, I think). “What’s holding you back?”
“I’m trying to get my head wrapped around spending $6,000 for a motorcycle,” I said.
Marvin knew the drill. He was good at what he did. He probably made a lot more money than I did.
“Are you single?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Working?”
“Yep.”
“Got any debt?”
“Nope.”
“So what’s your problem?”
“It’s like I said, Marvin,” I answered. “I’m trying to justify spending six grand on a motorcycle.”
“You’re single, right?”
“Yep.”
“Well, who do you need to justify it to?”
And, as Tom Hanks would say 30 years later in Forrest Gump, just like that I became a Harley rider.
Another two-page spread in the ’79 brochure, showing the entire Harley line. They were beautiful motorcycles.
Yeah, the bike had a lot of quality issues, the most bothersome being a well-known (after you bought one, that is) tendency for the new 80-cubic-inch Shovelhead valves to stick. I first stuck a valve at around 4,000 miles (all of a sudden my Classic was a 40-cubic-inch single, and Harley fixed it on the warranty). I asked Marvin about that, and the answer was, “Yeah, this unleaded gas thing don’t work too good with the new motors. Put a little Marvel Mystery Oil in each of the tanks, or maybe a dime’s worth of diesel, and you’ll be okay…”
Seriously? Marvel Mystery Oil? Diesel fuel?
But I wanted to be good guy, and I did as directed. It wasn’t enough. A valve stuck again at 8,000 miles, Marvel Mystery Oil and that dime’s worth of diesel notwithstanding. Another trip to the dealer, and another valve job. I could see where this was going. The bike had a 12,000 mile warranty.
“So, Marvin,” I began, “what happens the next time a valve hangs up?”
Marvin smiled a knowing smile. “It all depends which side of that 12,000 miles you’re on.” Somehow, Marvin’s Texas accent made it not hurt as much.
Sure enough, at 12,473 miles, a valve stuck for a third time. This one was on me. I pulled the heads, brought them to the dealer, and paid for that valve job. You know, you can just about fix anything on a Harley with a 9/16 wrench and a screwdriver. It was easy to work on. But it wasn’t just the valves sticking. The rear disk brake had problems. The primary cover leaked incessantly. And a bunch of other little things. I’m not kidding. The mean time between failures on that bike was about a hundred miles, and I’d had enough. I called the bike my Optical Illusion. It looked like a motorcycle.
One other thing about the Harley sticks out. I took it with me when I moved to California, and at one of the dealers one of the many times when it was in for service, the dealer’s mascot did what I suddenly realized I had wanted to do. That mascot was a huge, slobbering St. Bernard. It sauntered over to my bike and took a leak on the rear wheel. “Oooh, better hose that down,” the service manager said. “That will eat up the aluminum wheel.” I had to laugh (hell, everyone else was) as the guy sprayed water from a garden hose all over the bike. That dog had beat me to it. He did what I had felt like doing the entire time I owned the bike. The kicker is that even though the service manager sprayed the bejesus out of the bike in a vain attempt to remove all traces of the St. Bernard’s territorial claims, it was all for naught. From that day on wherever I went if there was a dog within a hundred yards, it did the same thing. My Harley was a two-tone tan-and-cream traveling fire hydrant.
Good Lord, though, that Harley was beautiful. Park it anywhere and it would draw a crowd. Half the people who saw it wanted a ride, and if they were female I was happy to oblige. It was big and heavy and it didn’t handle worth a damn, but it sure was pretty. The only time I almost crashed I was riding through a strip mall parking lot admiring my reflection in the store windows. That’s how good-looking it was. I wish I kept it.
In all passions you will find lovers and users. The vintage motorcycle passion, looking backwards towards a rose-tinted youth seems to have more than its share of both. Most vintage motorcycle enthusiasts are into the hobby because they either had a particular model or dreamed of owning a particular model way back when they were freshly weaned from the teat of childhood. Powerful first impressions drill that Yamaha RT1 or Kawasaki Z1B into a youngster’s brain like the clean, soapy scent of their first girlfriend’s hair.
Dreamers will spare no expense to make the fantasy whole, a living breathing relic of their past that they can ride today. The sounds of an old two-stroke twin can bring tears; the fierce kickback from an ancient thumper calls forth the rare, crystal clear memory along with an aching foot. When the time comes that they must sell their pride and joy to pay for an assisted living facility, Dreamers care about the motorcycle going to a good home, to someone who will appreciate the motorcycle as much as they did.
Not so the Flipper. The Flipper sees everything in dollars and cents. His only concern is extracting the maximum amount of cash from the Dreamers. The Flipper appears to share our enthusiasm and in fact may be knowledgeable about old motorcycles but his is a clinical, product knowledge. The Flipper could be selling Pokémon cards or Barbie dolls still in the original packaging and feel nothing for any of it.
The Flipper, egged on by TV shows glorifying the act of preying on the uneducated, scavenges the countryside looking for old motorcycles to buy at below market rates. Or steal in real terms. He then raises the price to astronomical levels and pops the thing on eBay to watch the Dreamers bid the thing even higher. Widows, children settling an estate or ex-wives exacting revenge on unfaithful husbands fuel the Flipper’s trade in misery.
Some Flippers don’t bother to learn their product line. You’ll see them on vintage motorcycle chat sites posting up a part or an entire motorcycle and asking, “What is this and what’s it worth?” They actually want to know model and year so they can eBay the thing. It’s a lazy Flipper that buys on appearance alone.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with the buy low-sell high business model except when passion enters into the process. Flippers, through their actions, drive up the cost of vintage motorcycling for the Dreamers. His great financial gains encourage other Dreamers to sell out their childhood memories and become Flippers themselves. With a finite supply of product this process of devouring our own eventually attracts the Collectors.
Collectors have a Flipper’s business sense along with the money to back it up. They don’t need to sell anything ever. When a collector dies an auction house usually disposes of his motorcycles to an audience comprised of 90% Collectors and 10% Dreamers. Flippers know there are no good deals at an auction. By withholding product from the market the Collector also helps drive up costs for those of us who just want an old motorcycle to ride.
This cycle of driving up costs continues until people who don’t really give a crap about them own all the old motorcycles. The Dreamers are priced out of the market and go on to other hobbies like heart surgery or knee replacement. As the generations that originally desired the motorcycles begin to die off the prices will drop and the Flippers, seeing a contracting market, will move on to destroy another fun, economical hobby. Like model trains.
There is no solution to the Flipper problem. Events must follow their course and human nature cannot be denied. Profit wins over passion every time. It’s enough that we loved the old bikes for what they were. Our memories will not be for sale.
This is a blog I did for CSC a year or so ago, and it’s one I thought I would run again here. We haven’t done a Dream Bikes blog in a while, and it’s time.
It’s raining, it’s cold here in southern California, and those two conditions are enough to keep me indoors today. I’ve been straightening things up here in the home office, and I came across a Triumph brochure from 1978. I bought a new Bonneville that year and as I type this, I realize that was a cool 40 years ago. Wowee. Surprisingly, the brochure scanned well, so much so that even the fine print is still readable…
Triumph had two 750 twins back then. One was the twin-carb Bonneville, and the other was the single-carb model (I think they called it the Tiger). The Bonneville came in brown or black and the Tiger came in blue or red (you can see the color palette in the third photo above). I liked the red and my dealer (in Fort Worth) swapped the tank from a Tiger onto my Bonneville. I loved that bike, and I covered a lot of miles in Texas on it. I used to ride with a friend and fellow engineer at General Dynamics named Sam back in the F-16 days (he had a Yamaha 500cc TT model, which was another outstanding bike back in the day). I wish I still had that Bonneville.
After I sold the Bonneville, I turned right around and bought a ’79 Electra-Glide Classic. There’s a brochure buried around here somewhere on that one, and if I come across it I’ll see how it scans. The Harley had a lot of issues, but it’s another one I enjoyed owning and riding, and it’s another I wish I still owned.
So there you have it. That ’78 Bonneville is a bike I still have dreams about, and they were made all the more poignant by the Royal Enfield Interceptor I rode in Baja last month. You can read about the Enfield Interceptor and our Baja adventures here.
Want to read more pieces like this? Check out our other Dream Bikes here!
Hey, there’s more good stuff coming your way. We do our best to blog every day, and we’ve got great stories lined up for you:
In San Diego I lived across the street from a Safeway food market. Man, I never ran out of anything. That Safeway is now a West Marine boat supply store. They got nothing to eat in the whole damn place. But back then, around 1980, it was a great food source.
I am enjoying Australia immensely. Joe Gresh, you got it right…this is an awesome place. The western shore along the Indian Ocean, the food, the people, the scenery…it’s all amazing, and it’s not that different in feel, look, and climate than southern California. But the vintage motorcycles at the Motor Museum of Western Australia: Wowee!
In all passions you will find lovers and users. The vintage motorcycle passion, looking backwards towards a rose-tinted youth seems to have more than its share of both. Most vintage motorcycle enthusiasts are into the hobby because they either had a particular model or dreamed of owning a particular model way back when they were freshly weaned from the teat of childhood. Powerful first impressions drill that Yamaha RT1 or Kawasaki Z1B into a youngster’s brain like the clean, soapy scent of their first girlfriend’s hair.
